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DIY warming drawer

Mike G

Mike G

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Mike
I'm in the early stages of planning a Court Cupboard for our dining room, and would like to incorporate a warming drawer to keep food and plates warm. Unfortunately, most commercially available warming drawers seem to be about 600mm deep (front to back), but my cupboard will only be about 450 deep. I will therefore need to consider making my own drawer.

As I see it, I have a couple of options. Firstly, some sort of controllable electric heating. Secondly, a candle-based system; a variation on those food warmers you get in Indian restaurants which sit on the table.

So, I am after comments or suggestions. Is there an electric element I could incorporate into a stainless steel surrounding inside a cupboard? Or would some form of infra-red lamp be more practical? Would anything else work?
 
We have a Miele built in warming draw. The way that works and all of the commercial ones work that I have seen, is to use a heat mat in the base of the drawer and a small circulation fan. Ours has various settings - basically dealing with cups, plates, food trays and I suppose towels. There is also a timer which double as on/off and then sets at one, two, three or four hours. The plate warmer setting gets them hot enough such that you need a cloth to handle the plates, even stacked directly on each other.

You don't want hot spots (which also means cold spots) if you are keeping food warm. The ones in restaurants are only for service - so the already hot food is being eaten there and then and they are more for drama than practicality.

The restaurant ones that hold stacks of plates, dishes or food, are basically heat circulation ovens where hot air is circulated by a fan. Plates are on wire racks. Generally their is a top heat element.

Holding stations to keep food warmed are generally hot trays with an infra red heat lamp above. Very often the trays are stainless gastros sat in in a hot water bath at about 55C.

Bear in mind of you are using it - to keep food warm, bacteria multiplication happens rapidly once the temp drops below a safe level (which itself depends on the food per FSA guidance) and heat lamps are very drying of whatever is on the surface and really bad if the food is close to the lamp.

In my experience home drawers are usually not deep enough (ours isn't) and so don't cope with service pans or big pasta dishes. If it were me I would probably be looking to use a heat mat and a circulation fan. Heat mat must have a removable surface layer on the bottom for cleaning ideally.

Given your size constraint, maybe look at using a full size gastronorm tray (cheap and stainless steel) as the bottom of your drawer or cupboard and make it lift out for cleaning. This has the big advantage that you can put red hot cast iron casseroles or pans directly on it without risk and spillages are contained.
 
IMG_6072.JPG
This is the drawer base, which is SS with a removable silicon sheet (so can stand high temps) mat on it. The pimples are so that if I put a hot tray in that is a bit sticky, it doesn't glue itself to the base.
 
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Yes, I saw these, earlier. A couple of those in a stainless steel cupboard-liner, and they would probably do the job.
 
I'm not sure that would be hot enough, Ian. It needs to get plates hot enough that you need a glove, and to keep food piping hot.
 
I did see that but not sure I would go with the cordless ones Mike. Bit of a nuisance to charge I surmise. But I use our hot drawer every day and you might not. Also we quite frequently have our on for well over an hour. Incidentally, you may not know this but you can get wrap around plate / dish blankets that are really effective and don't need a drawer, so the latter could be used just for food.

If you have a spare oven, that is also great as a warming cabinet.
 
We have a second oven, but it's often on for stuff cooking at a different temperature........but it's the slow plating up of food which is our issue. Stuff can be out of the oven for 5 or 10 minutes before it gets on a plate. That's not good.
 
Interesting. I’ll be intrigued to know what you decide on, because I’ve been mulling this over for a while myself.

What I have at the moment is a freestanding electric tray thing bought from Lidl or Aldi for under £20. It came with some contraptions for food which I threw away (too much like a Hostess trolley), and we only use it for plates – our place in the Borders can get very cold, and if you don’t start with a warm plate, by the time you have gone from the kitchen to the dining room you might as well not have bothered cooking it. Mains powered, simple thermostat, stainless steel surface. 360x640x50. Has worked well for a number of years, because there’s nothing to go wrong with it. I was considering building that into one of the kitchen cabinets.

The commercially available warming drawers seem to be very expensive for what they are. So I am also considering just another cheap fan oven. I know in your case that would make three ovens, but, hey… Doesn’t have to be a full size oven either – you can get c.30l ovens for under £100.

The tea light heaters are a non-starter. We have a couple that we use for fun, but they can actually boil food – they do get really quite hot. And are not controllable, other than on or off.
 
Mike said he only has 450mm depth to play with. So ta da! https://www.nisbets.co.uk/buffalo-economy-pie-cabinet-30-pie-capacity/cj558?vatToggle=incvat&cm_mmc=PLA-_-18122692213-_--_-&cm_mmca1=go_18122692213____c_&kpid=go_cmp-18122692213_adg-_ad-__dev-c_ext-_prd-CJ558_sig-{gclid}&gad_source=1

Pie warming cabinet. You can get used Buffalo stuff quite often pretty cheaply. Can be had new for £180 inc VAT and delivery and suitable for all day use every day. Nisbets are quoting a bit over £200 but always come down when you ring them.
 

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Thanks Adrian........but I spot a problem. It is 469mm wide. If you take off 15mm each side for the SS, and 30mm for glass over-lap (note the knobs!), you get a rough maximum opening measurement of just over 200mm, optimistically. So, plates won't fit through the doors.
 
Tiresias said:
Interesting. I’ll be intrigued to know what you decide on, because I’ve been mulling this over for a while myself.

What I have at the moment is a freestanding electric tray thing bought from Lidl or Aldi for under £20. It came with some contraptions for food which I threw away (too much like a Hostess trolley), and we only use it for plates – our place in the Borders can get very cold, and if you don’t start with a warm plate, by the time you have gone from the kitchen to the dining room you might as well not have bothered cooking it. Mains powered, simple thermostat, stainless steel surface. 360x640x50. Has worked well for a number of years, because there’s nothing to go wrong with it. I was considering building that into one of the kitchen cabinets.

The commercially available warming drawers seem to be very expensive for what they are. So I am also considering just another cheap fan oven. I know in your case that would make three ovens, but, hey… Doesn’t have to be a full size oven either – you can get c.30l ovens for under £100.

The tea light heaters are a non-starter. We have a couple that we use for fun, but they can actually boil food – they do get really quite hot. And are not controllable, other than on or off.
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You may have decided what you are going to do, but I noticed when looking for something else that Lidl have these in again.

https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/silvercrest-kitchen-tools-buffet-warmer/p10020919

£25.

Width could be reduced by taking the handles off, and possibly cutting down too. My one has been reliable.
 
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